


Azure

by rukaXtora



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Fluff, F/M, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Content, Multi, One-Sided Relationship, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Swearing, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:34:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25274758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rukaXtora/pseuds/rukaXtora
Summary: Being the retainer to the fabled Warrior of Light wasn't just being in her service, it was a lifetime commitment. (Retainer's perspective, because we should never forget about the people that helped our WoL)
Relationships: Aymeric de Borel/Warrior of Light, G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Warrior of Light, Player Character/Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Retainers/Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Kudos: 11





	Azure

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Please enjoy your stay. Also a note, I'm very aware of the weird compressed time bubble in regards to the timeframe of all three expansions. For the sake of reasonable spacing, as well as the WoL's mental sanity and growth regarding...everything, the time between ARR to Shadowbringers will be roughly 8-10 years. Carry on.
> 
> Also, have some current-age Rucca and Hayato for your reference pleasure~  
> https://twitter.com/rukastarr/status/1281681985157529600

It wasn't always this way. 

He wasn't always employed by the Primal Slayer, God Killer, Warrior of Light...whatever the hell people fancy calling her these days. He wasn't always running errands for her, ensuring upkeep of their home while she was away for months on end, and gifting her the spoils of his efforts on the Frontlines. No. Back then, he thought he could be somebody because it was handed to him. Wealth blinded and was easily taken. 

~*~

In his youth Hayato was a member of the Ul'dahn upper class; his family's only child and a son, no less. Not quite Syndicate level of wealth, but close enough to feel the entitlement coursing through his veins. He even had some fancy-sounding snooty name to go along with his silver spoon, whatever the hell it was now; he had long-since abandoned the name and purposefully erased it from his memory like the winds of Thanalan buried life beneath the sands. Like his father before him, he felt that the peasantry were beneath him, even his servants were treated like mongrels within the household. ( _."With a flair of golden vocabulary, of course! We are nobility!"_ His father oft remarked. _Egh._ ) Lavish parties at his family's estate were considered an ordinary affair in his household in order to entice clients to their generations-old wine trade (his father was a well-respected connoisseur who provided even the Bismarck in faraway Limsa Lominsa with choice selections, just as his father did before him, and him, and...), and his parents spared no expense to employ the finest Paladins the army could offer in order to train him in the ways of the holy knight, with the hope that he could be personally chosen to become the Sultana's shield. 

He'd always fucking hated lugging the door-sized shield around, but he dealt with it in order to become **the best**. He had built up muscle and strengthened his body by swinging the massive wall of a shield against training dummies until they shattered into a splintered mass at his feet almost nightly. He was only fifteen, but he was to become a man soon, and that meant that the exams to become a Paladin squire were on the horizon. The excitement as the date drew near filled him to the brim much unlike his father's aged wine barrels, for if the Bull of Ala Mhigo could become the Sultana's right hand straight out of the Gladiator Arena, then surely he would become a Paladin prodigy. His cerulean eyes shone a brighter blue than the sunny skies above Ul'dah as he imagined gripping the gleaming silver of the Paladin's sword tightly in his hands.

That day never came. He remembered his studies being interrupted by terrified screams in the middle of the night, the crashing of furniture followed by a loud _crunch_ (he desperately hoped it was a chair leg or something flimsy, or maybe that stupid low table in the parlor), and the clanging of steel echoing through the halls. He steeled himself in his room, preparing for the intruder bounding up the stairs toward his door by wielding his wide practice shield and an iron broadsword. He had always fucking hated lugging the door-sized shield around, but he dealt with it in order to fucking **live**. He thought of himself as a fortress with the iron wall, but it just made him _too **fucking slow**_. It wasn't enough to guard against a man wielding both a goddamn heavy axe that lodged itself into his _shitty-by-comparison_ shield and a side-swiping scimitar that caught the bridge of his nose as he teetered backward. He yelped as the steel seared his flesh and ribbons of crimson spilled forth, tossing the shield aside and disarming the thug of his axe. Had he not released the weighted lump of iron that did fuck all for him, his head would have been lopped clean off his neck. He chose to retreat from the losing battle and instead run for the nearest window and pray to the Twelve that he landed on something soft. By some stroke of luck ( _bless the Twelve, he'll definitely start praying to Halone from now on_ ), he landed on piles of bags filled with food scraps from the previous night's dinner party and without skipping a beat, he dashed past the dark gardens of the estate and disappeared into the night while his assailant retreated from the window and resumed the chaos with his comrades in the trampled, now emblazed, home. 

He remembered collapsing somewhere in the slums near the Sapphire Exchange some time later, he didn't know how long he ran or how many times he had sidestepped into alleys to ensure an erratic path of escape. He didn't care that cabbage shreds were tangled into his deep-blue hair like some ugly night sky nor the streams of blood that had spilled from the slash across his nose had dried across his face and had begun flaking off. _**That's gonna scar, but to hell with it.**_ He heaved, hair plastered to his face with sweat as he ducked and peered out from behind a mountain of shipping crates, listening for the tell-tale clambering of footsteps chasing after him, but none came. After several heart-hammering beats, he buried himself under some dirty popoto sacks behind the crates, the anxiety of being pursued keeping him awake until his body fell under the spell of exhaustion as the soft, menacing glow of sunrise peeked over the city walls. He found out late the following afternoon after he had awoken that a rival sommalier had hired the sellswords that often roamed outside the city-state to raid his family's home to ensure a collapse of their wine business in order to improve his own connections, knowing full well that such sellswords were not above murder if it meant earning a bit of coin. His home had been burned down, his family's legacy along with it. 

He was no more than a discarded mutt tossed to the streets, his ambitions of becoming a proud knight buried within the ashes of his former home. The Twelve punished his family for how they treated those less fortunate in favor of their own glory, and he paid the price by being reduced to offal amongst the refugees that littered the streets of Ul'dah. 

**_Utter, disgusting trash..._**

He soon found himself living day-by-day on the streets, fighting for survival and resorting to common thievery and brawling for coin and food. He had long since discarded his expensive linens and silks in exchange for generic hempen rags, his new lodgings now made up of discarded crates tucked away in an alleyway behind the Sapphire Exchange. The Paladin training had given him an advantage in developing speed and power from swinging around a hefty training shield for practice, and the end results were many matches won and a meal at the end of the day, no matter how miniscule the dish may be. He lived this way for a year, gaining a reputation as "Azure", the scar-faced, young, cerulean-haired brawler that would knock someone unconscious in seconds if it meant winning a half-eaten popoto for supper. He had gone from a proper upper-class boy to a rough, disrespectful and swear-spitting wretch who held no remorse for stealing from his father's old clients had he seen them in the street.  


He was only fifteen, soon to become a man in a day, and everything was finally taken away from him when he was arrested for stealing a coin purse from a traveling merchant heads smaller than he but with a mountain of a Roegadyn for a bodyguard. **_Never trust a Lalafell with a mustache._**

~*~

**She saved him that day.**

Some pathetic-looking Miqo'te brat with hair the color of precious rubies tied into two equally-pathetic low pigtails and fiery red tattoos that looked like a child smeared finger paint across her face stared at him in the stocks, her one sparkling amber eye bothering him as his ankles were shackled and the pillory locked above his neck and wrists. __Why the hell did she have two different colored eyes?__ She had to be no more than twelve summers, but the length of her tail and choice of...questionable attire said otherwise, the all-too-short pleated skirt and thigh-high stockings only enticing rather inappropriate thoughts that soon swarmed his mind...Maybe she was his age? He wasn't sure, but the pitiful look in those mis-matched eyes irritated him. He used to be like her once; looking down on those less fortunate in chains and walking past to head to inviting market stalls nearby to indulge on sticky sweets from faraway lands that to the imprisoned were just out of reach, as if to say _"You wish you could afford this?"_ **_How the tables have turned._** Unlike his past self, however, she didn't make any move to leave, she just continued to _stare_.

**_I bet she pities you._** How dare she revel in his humiliation, his fall from grace? Had things gone as planned, by this day in another time she would have been the one looking to him for protection as he glittered in his Paladin regalia, the glorious desert sun reflecting from his polished scale mail. Infuriated by her silent ridicule, he spat in her direction, earning him a swift punch to the face by the soldier that had secured his chains. In response, he snapped his head toward his cackling guard and growled. He reacted so suddenly that the splintered wood of the pillory scraped his neck with stinging nips. It was at this moment that the girl closed the distance between herself and the soldier with a burst _"HEY!"_ She wedged herself between them both, gripping the soldier's wrist as she bared her teeth. The soldier winced slightly at the sudden twist of his arm.

"There's no need to hit him when he's already down!" the girl hissed behind her fangs. They were tiny little canines, like a small coeurl kit trying to be menacing in the face of a scraggly old alpha wolf. In conjunction with her small stature that faced off against the soldier, he almost found it cute. _Almost._

"Watch'rself, little brat. This boy's a thief, an' you better not try that again 'f ye don' wanna get locked up too," said the soldier as he wrenched his wrist out of her grasp. "He's gon' be expensive t' get out 'f yer wantin' him."

"Sorry sir, don't need to pay if he's assigned to be my retainer. We got separated after I registered at the Adventurer's Guild, so I was looking for him and get us registered with the Retainer Vocate, but uhh...yeah, here we are." The girl then looked at him with cold warning, as if to say _"Please don't do anything stupid."_

 ** _Wait. What in the seven hells-_**

" _Bullshite_ , he's known 'round this part of Ul'dah for his fightin' and stealin'-"

"Which is why he agreed to work with me! _'Turning a new leaf for a pretty lady'_ and all that. Now _please_ let my boy go. I'll give you two-hundred gil!" the girl begged. He had no idea why the girl was arguing and bartering to save the person that loathed her the moment they locked eyes, but maybe he could make a run for it with her purse once they rounded the corner if she succeeded in bailing him out. She didn't look _that_ strong, with her thin arms and gangly legs that connected to a peeking plump a-

The soldier grumbled as he relented and pulled out the rusted key from his trouser pocket, the promise of coin much more welcome than dealing with a dirty street rat. As he was being released, the girl turned back to look at him, giving him a reassuring smile before fishing a small purse from her pack and counting coins. He groaned. He wasn't sure whether to feel grateful or embarrassed that this unknown Miqo'te girl had interfered and just paid for his freedom with a mere two-hundred gil. With one final _click!_ , he was free. He rubbed at his wrists and neck once the pillory was lifted and kicked the shackles unceremoniously toward the soldier. 

"Hayato, _please!_ " she pleaded. "Please be good and we'll grab food after, okay? I spent all day looking for you!" A flash of confusion spread across his face. **_Who the fuck was Hayato?_**

He looked at the girl and the soldier, the latter of whom had just pocketed the gil she had paid him slowly reaching for the sword resting against his side. Her eyes, amber and brown, pierced the air as she watched him and awaited his next move. A slight shiver went down his spine; he didn't want to get locked up again, and the girl might not have enough coin to free him a second time. He stepped down and turned away sheepishly. "Mm...sorry." 

He graciously accepted the girl's hand as she led him away from the stocks, leaving the grumbling soldier behind to replace him with some other unlucky sop who was unfortunately not him. Pft. Poor bastard. He had to hide a warming blush as she squeezed his fingers, signaling for him to resist the urge to say something stupid while still in earshot. He was absolutely fine with that.

As they walked through the Sapphire Exchange hand in hand, he looked down at the girl, ears twitching in every which-way and eyes wandering from one stall to another excitedly. Was this fun for her? Where the hell did she even come from? Unfortunately for her, he had to cut her joy short before he signed away his freedom to the Retainer Vocate and to this shrew of a cat that led him down the path to this unexpected hell. He had only ever heard about retainers from his father's clients, men and women signed under the employ of adventurers that traveled the realm. Some retainers were sent to fetch meaningless items, some were assigned to dangerous missions for their masters, and some never came back. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place; get imprisoned and die in jail or work for this scantily-clad cat and die fetching her an anchovy? He absolutely hated his odds. _**Please kill me.**_

"So, what's the deal with cutting me loose? Who ever said I was gonna work with a kit like you?" He spat. 

"Hmph. I said you would be working with me. Be grateful that I got you out, you looked like a sad, deflated wreck," she snorted. He gritted his teeth and attempted to pull his hand away, but her iron-grip only tightened more, threatening to crack his fingers. Where the hell did that strength come from? He didn't wish to cause a scene by striking her in retaliation and risk being arrested again, so he quelled his minor mental rebellion after a muttered " _Bitch_ " left his lips. As they neared the Vocate, the girl's voice dropped to a softer tone. "To be honest, you're the first person I found here. I just got into town and was on my way to the Vocate to hire one of the retainers on their list before I saw you. I don't know," she looked up at him with a big grin and chortled, "you looked pretty pathetic and about ready to let that guard have his way with you."

"I hope you drop dead," 

"That's a great way to tell your boss you love her," she smirked. 

_He wanted to punch her._

"You're goddamn lucky. By the by, my name ain't Hayato."

"Oh, sorry. I didn't know what to call you to make it sound convincing, so the first name that popped up was the name of a coeurl that used to prowl around my village when I was ten. He kept stealing our livestock. He was really violent, y'know? No one liked him and wanted him dead."

"Thanks," he exhaled. "Guessing you really hated him too."

"No, not really," she replied, a small smile creeping onto her face. Not one that followed one of her usual quips, but a genuine, endearing smile. **_Wait...endearing? Gods dammit._** "I learned to like him. I got him to stop stealing the goats one day and I trained him every day until I could mount him, even though he scratched and bit me a bunch. He was my war coeurl until he got speared during the Battle of Carteneau." 

He suddenly went quiet. If his math was right...she was _ten_ when she was sent to the war against the Garlean Empire. He could only imagine what kind of _fucked up_ life she lived where goddamn _children_ were tossed onto the battlefield alongside seasoned warriors to _die_. How many friends had she lost before they even got to live out their childhoods? She was younger than he was when she fought in a losing battle, and by then he had barely learned to hold a sword. He remembered hiding in his room, watching the looming visage of Dalamud in the dark sky before the earth was pelted by fiery comets upon Bahamut's emergence from the crimson moon. He sat in his room trembling in his bed, thinking he was going to die. What was it like for a small girl, barely ten summers, watching your friends and family falling into pieces all around you? While he stewed on the newfound knowledge of the girl that currently held his life in her hand, her voice pulled him back to reality. "So, what exactly is your name?"

He looked away shamefully, choosing to focus his eyes at the crumbling cobblestone pavement beneath their feet as they trudged on. "I...don't have one."

"Damn, that sucks. Well, you can have Hayato if you want," she suggested.

He scoffed, "That's _if_ I work for you."

"I mean, we are in the desert, and who knows? Maybe to that guard you were probably an oasis to a thirsty traveler such as he-"

" _Fine_. Hi, I'm **HAYATO**."

The girl grinned. "I'm Rucca."

~*~

"Sign your name here, boy, and you're registered," said the clerk, yawning as she tapped a nail against the blank line. Rucca had already filled out the rest of the retainer forms, being sure to include that he was a Pugilist like her (he accepted that, it was basically what he did anyway). His mind went blank. _What could he call himself?_ He had refused his former name, and he honestly hadn't had time to think of one during the walk to the Vocate's station. **_What did she call me again? Hayato?_** After much thought, he finally decided on his new name, referencing both his street moniker and the name of a dead animal that the girl beside him had unexpectedly blurted out.

He hastily scribbled " **Hayato De'Azure** " and slid the parchment over to Rucca for approval. He chuckled as she beamed, nodding before she piled it on top of her completed forms and handed the packet to the Vocate. With a swift slam of the weighted stamp, his new name was forged. 

The rest of their day was spent adding his name to her registry at the Adventurer's Guild, purchasing him new attire, completing minor tasks for a bit of extra coin, and finally retiring to a room at the inn. It had been so long since he had bathed or slept in a proper bed, and the feeling was...odd. A lot of his life was undone when his family home was burned down and barely a year later, he found himself sitting in the large room in the inn, one that rivaled the size of his former bedroom at his family estate. They both sat at the small wooden dining table following a much-needed hot bath, feasting on steaming plates of eft tail with no sense of formality or etiquette. How long had it been since he had eaten a proper meal?

"Sorry, this is kind of the last of the gil I had. I didn't expect to bribe the guard to get you out." Rucca smiled weakly. He scoffed.

"Then why the hell did you waste it on me? We're back to sleeping on the street come tomorrow!"

"Not if I work! I've applied for a couple of hunts in the morning, and if I'm good at anything it's hunting!" She harumphed as she pointed her fork at him. "You should have more faith in your new boss!"

"So then, _boss_ ," he snorted. "How old are you and why are you even here?"

So, she was just a year younger than him. Rucca Dupre, a Miqo'te of fifteen summers (" _I left my tribe after my birthday and they don't ever want me back!_ "), true name discarded once she was exiled and had to conjure up a new one on her own. She had refused to mate with traveling _Nuhn_ when she hit the age of fourteen, the appropriate age for women of her warrior tribe to breed more stock with wandering dominant Miqo'te males to strengthen their numbers. She had the strong desire to travel as the adventurers that the _Nhun_ would recall tales of, wishing to fulfill her thirst of battle knowledge after she survived the Calamity. As a result of her defiance, she was exiled from her tribe and cast out into the dark forest of the Black Shroud with nothing more than a small pack and her fists. She was not even allowed her precious coeurl's pelt when she was cast out. She had bartered her way into traveling caravans until she found her way into the deserts of Thanalan, eyes sparkling at the looming alabaster spires that poked out from behind the city walls. Along the way, Rucca had picked up new terms, words, and names from foreign tongues, those of which she would piece together her own chosen name. As she wandered the bustling market stalls of Ul'dah upon registering with the local Adventurer's Guild, she spotted a flash of sapphire amongst the sandy brown, head cast downward, but not defeated. His thrashing in retaliation drew her to him. His ferocity, held back by his shackles, reminded her of her _dearest Hayato_ , long dead and buried deep within the Shroud. 

He signed away his life to serve her, and he hated that he agreed to her sudden demand just to get off the streets. **_Perhaps, it wouldn't be so bad?_** he thought to himself as he watched her strip down into her small clothes and slipped into the bed, burying herself beneath the cotton sheets. She looked to him as she patted the space next to her and, for the first time all day, paused with wide eyes and turned away in attempts to hide a furious blush. She was probably used to sleeping with the other female Miqo'te of her tribe, he supposed, so wearing little may not have meant much to her until now. The bed was large enough for the both of them, and he chuckled as she watched Rucca tightly curl herself into a ball beneath the sheets to make herself seem small as he blew the candle out. He steeled himself as he climbed in after her and turned to face her, elbow propped. 

**_She was no more than a young child at the Battle of Carteneau, maybe I should stick around. Might be fun._ **

"Don't disappoint me, _boss_ , and I'll do my best not to disappoint you."

"Well," she gulped as she peeked an eye out from under the sheet. "At the very least, we're disappointments with a blanket."

He snorted as he turned away from her, wondering whether the situation he was facing was granted to him by the Twelve as a curse or a blessing. No matter, he at least had a roof over his head for the time being, and it meant he wasn't in jail. Behind him, Rucca squeaked and spat out a hasty "Good night, Hayato!" before turning away from him and bumping her head against the stone wall with a muffled whine. They were in this together, whether he liked it or not. Both living new lives, both with brand new names, both misfits together.

Hayato had just turned sixteen, had just become a man, and he wasn't sure if his life was falling apart all over again, but he wasn't alone this time around.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! This is...a bit of a venture. I've had years unintentionally developing my retainer's lore (since ARR back in 2013....eh....) I say unintentionally since he was just originally just a retainer I made during my STARISH/Utapri boom and I was a Tokiya/Hayato stan back then. Shoot me. He was my first retainer and he always stuck, and I had the idea of him "growing up" with my WoL with each expansion, aka height growth, muscle tone, hairstyle change, and more scars. Cuz MNK life. That and he had a tendency to bring me PVP gear so he punches shit. Then it just kind of went from there. My style is...very lengthy, since my RP style is paragraphs lol.
> 
> I have illustrated babby Hayato, and I may include it later on. From time to time I'll post Hayato and Rucca things on my twitter~ Feel free to follow if you like ^^ http://twitter.com/rukaXtora


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